Lego Star Wars The Original Trilogy - Xbox 360

I've always said I loved the Lego games. The first one I played was the Lego Star Wars Prequel Trilogy and was hooked. Here's the kind of interesting thing: I realized that up until I played the original trilogy game I had only played two of the Lego games. Star Wars 1-3 and Lego Indiana Jones. Star Wars 1-3 I thoroughly enjoyed and Indiana Jones I hated with a passion. So basically my love of the Lego games was based off of enjoying one game and hating another... and yet I would have said I loved the Lego games.

When I started playing Lego Star Wars The Original Trilogy I went into it thinking I enjoyed the Lego games. You know what I found out? I really don't. When I originally played Star Wars 1-3 I believe I truly enjoyed it. However every Lego game after that has felt exactly the same, and every thing I've disliked about the Lego games just gets transfered over to the next.

When I have to trudge through a Star Wars game you know something is wrong. I love Star Wars, I love everything about Star Wars. Hell, I actually enjoyed the prequels to an extent, but you know what? It was a chore to play Lego Star Wars The Original Trilogy. By the end I just wanted it to be over. Where do I even start?

The AI? The AI was absolute shit. This doesn't really surprise me and frankly I don't expect the game to have stellar AI. Here's the problem though. You have AI teammates. Teammates that I expect to at the very least SHOOT bad guys... and they don't. I once had three AI teammates stand there and watch stormtroopers kill me. They didn't do anything, they just watched. This wasn't an isolated incident. It happened all the goddamn time. Your teammates do absolutely nothing while they're being shot or you're being shot. Occasionally they fight back but for the most part they just die. This wouldn't be so bad except occasionally you have to build things from destroyed Lego blocks. Every time you get shot you have to start over. Bad guys almost always target you. Bad guys respawn infinitely. See the problem? For the most part I just tried to make a barrier with my teammates so at least they would get shot so I could build things. And forget if you need the AI to actually do something, press something, or help you out in some way. That was just a practice in frustration. The AI in this game is beyond terrible.

Jedis are absolute bad asses... in every other Star Wars game. In this game? I would take a blaster over a light saber any day of the week. If there was an option between a Jedi and some sort of generic trooper with a blaster you can bet I'm going with the trooper. The light saber is the most ineffective weapon in the entire game. Makes total sense, right?

Only Bounty Hunters can open this door. Get used to seeing that phrase. Littered throughout the game are doors that only bounty hunters can open. What does that mean? It means that once you beat the level you have to re-beat at least part of the level with a bounty hunter character (which you may or may not have unlocked somewhere in the game) just so you can open that door and see what's behind it. If the game was a little better I might have wanted to try it, but considering for the most part it was a trudge to beat the level the first time I rarely wanted to replay the level with a different character.

It's dull and repetitive. Basically I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over just in different locations. There seemed to be absolutely no variety in the game. Nothing surprised me. Mostly I just killed some guys, found some puzzle pieces, built something, moved on to the next screen. Over and over and over again. That's what I felt like I was doing all six hours I played the game. Occasionally you would get a flying level or something that was a bit different, but overall it was incredibly repetitive.

The flying levels. Sure they broke up some of the repetitiveness, but here's the problem: they're horrible. Remember in Empire Strikes Back where Luke had to attach a rope from his A-Wing to a boulder and then crash the boulder into a wall blocking his path, but unfortunately the boulder was insanely difficult to control and also he had to kill 3 AT-ATs, 6 AT-STs, and 8 Imperial Probe Droids before he could that? Me either, but you'll sure do a lot of that kind of thing while on the flying levels! The ships control like absolute shit, you're tasked to do repetitive shit that just feels like padding the games length, and overall you just want to flying levels to end. So yeah, they break up the repetitiveness but you have to deal with all that.

The camera. Yeah, the camera is bad in a platformer. Shocking, I know.

The save points or lack thereof. This has been one of my major complaints about the Lego games. Their save point system is absolutely shit. You save when you beat a level... with no middle checkpoints of anything of that nature. You can save when you beat a level, that's it. These levels may take 45 minutes, it may take an hour. Need to turn your system off before that? Have fun completing the level all over again. Listen, we're no longer playing on the SNES or something with limited memory for saves. You can give us more then one save every 45 minutes. The one reason I've heard against save anywhere is that it makes games easier (which is complete BS, it generally makes games less frustrating, not easier) but with the Lego games you're literally playing a game where you can't fucking die. It doesn't get much easier then that. Give us a save anywhere feature. I was playing a level in Return of the Jedi when I realized I needed to get ready and go out for the night. I needed to leave in 15 minutes and just didn't have time to finish up the level. Rather then leave my Xbox on for the next five hours or so doing nothing I opted to turn it off. Guess what I had to do the next day? Beat that entire level over again because I couldn't just save. Awesome. The save system in the Lego games is absolute shit. Each level is broken up in two or three mini levels, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't be able to save at the end of each of those mini levels if you're not going to give us a save anywhere feature.

All of the Lego games feel exactly the same. They feel like you just changed the backgrounds a bit and went from Lego Star Wars to Lego Indiana Jones or to Lego Batman. They all feel like the exact same game with the exact same flaws. That's why I enjoyed the first Lego Star Wars game, at that point it was new to me. The humor was new, the feel was new, it was new... but after playing two more games that felt exactly the same with the exact same flaws? I've had enough. Until there's a major overhaul with the Lego Games I might has well just not play them because I already have.

Squid.

Doom II - Xbox Live Arcade

We all played Doom 2. If you're over the age of about 25 there's a good chance you spent many hours killing demons from hell. The Doom series wasn't the original first person shooter, but it was definitely the game that skyrocketed the series to what it is today. Everyone played Doom. Hell, my dad has beat Doom.

I picked up Doom 2 on XBLA a while back, not really sure what to expect. I hadn't played Doom 2 in quite some time and a lot of computer games from that time have not aged well. Blocky graphics, clunky controls, and you know how in modern games you can aim up and down? Not in Doom 2, bitches. I was very curious to see how a game like that would transfer over to the 360.

The answer? Incredibly well. Shockingly well. The last time I played Doom 2 the one major complaint I had with it was the control scheme. These were the days before WASD, you had to use the arrow keys. As odd as it seems this is incredibly awkward, especially after years of using WASD, but with the controller this is a thing of the past. The controls are great, I couldn't have asked for a better control scheme.

You know what else I found out? Doom 2 is still very fun. The later levels somewhat dragged on a bit, but overall Doom 2 is still a blast. It's nice to go back to a time in FPS games where there was a paper thin plot but a shitload of bad guys for you to kill. That's what Doom 2 is. A game where you can turn your brain off and just kill as many of hell's minions as possible.

If you haven't played Doom 2 before I want to welcome you out from that rock you've been been living under (I'll also accept the excuse of being too young), but you know what? With the great port we have of Doom 2 for XBLA there is absolutely no excuse for not having playing this game. Go out and buy it, it's well worth the 800MS points.

Squid.

Trials HD - Xbox Live Arcade

I first played Trials HD over at my brother's house, I'm not sure how he discovered it but all I know is that after playing it I was hooked. I went home that night and bought it for myself. I've been playing it ever since. It's been at least a year now, I would say that a month doesn't go by where I don't play Trials HD at some point.

Trails HD is just fun. There's no other way to put it. It's fun. Incredibly fun. It's a game that you'll find yourself playing when you have a few spare minutes. Have a spare five minutes? Hop on and play a few levels. Have a spare hour? Hop on and play a bunch of levels. Have a spare couple hours and some friends? I guarantee you can kill those hours with some Trials HD. You know how I know all of this? Because I've done all of those before... many, many times. You know what? I'll probably keep doing those things in the future.

Trials HD doesn't really seem to get old. I don't know how many hours I've played it, or how many times I've played certain levels, and yet I haven't grown tired of the game. I still try and beat my fastest time. I still try new things. I still try different bikes on different levels. I still haven't grown tired of it.

As I said, Trials HD is fun. For a fairly simplistic physics motorcycle game I seem to find myself playing it over and over and over again. If you don't own it already go out and buy it right this second. Trust me, you won't regret it.

Squid.

Hexic - Xbox Live Arcade

I'm not exactly sure how to review a puzzle game. How long do you have to play a puzzle game before you can review it? How do you review a game that you can't really beat? I'm not sure of the answer to either of those questions. I do however know that Hexic is a damn fun, addicting puzzle game that once I started playing I didn't want to put it down.

I think Hexic came with my Xbox 360 when I bought it. It's been sitting on my hard drive for about two and a half years now and not once have I ever bothered playing it. Hell, Hexic 2 was released in 2007 and I didn't even bother to play the first one despite the fact that I owned it. I wish I had discovered this game sooner because it's a hell of a fun time.

I'm not sure how to explain Hexic. You have a bunch of hexagons that are different colors and you can move them in a circle and you have to clump three of more of the same color together to clear them from the board. It's a very simple concept and frankly it's very fun. They throw obstacles in your way like bombs that you have to clear before the timer gets down to zero, which while it sounds easy can actually be very difficult. You can also make "flowers" which is a similar colored hexagons surrounding a middle, if you do this you get a special piece. Make those special pieces into a flower and you get a black pearl, get three black pearls clumped and you win your game. There's several different game types for you to choose from as well, that's just your normal game. There's also a timed version as well as a version that every round locks the pieces you didn't use the round before.

All and all the game is rather simplistic, but because of this it's easily accessible and fun. There's times where I started playing just thinking I was going to play one game, an hour later I've been sucked in and am still playing.

Hexic surprised me in how fun I would find it. It's a throughly enjoyable game that I find myself going back to when I have a spare few minutes. Check your Xbox and see if it's on the hard drive, it might have come free with it. You also occasionally see free promotions of the game as well. It's a really fun game and it's definitely worth giving a try.

Squid.

Morrowind - Xbox

I absolutely loved Morrowind. It was one of the first games I purchased for the Xbox and I played it for God knows how long, I probably spent ten hours alone just exploring and talking to people in Vivec. Since I bought it on Xbox I've played it at least twice as well as buying and playing it on the PC. I love games that allow me to explore and Morrowind exceeds at this. Though despite loving the game, I've never actually finished it, and because it's such an open ended game I'm not really sure how close I had come. I needed to remedy that. I needed to beat Morrowind.

One thing that actually somewhat shocked me is how well Morrowind has aged. For an almost eight year old game it doesn't look half bad. The character models are pretty bad as well as the animations, but overall the game is still rather pretty. I'm not one of those people that constantly complains about how games have just all turned brown, but it's kind of interesting to see the vibrant colors in Morrowind. The skies are sometimes a mix of blue, pinks, and purples. There's forests, mountains, water, things that feel like a true environment. It's a stark contrast between it and games where you sometimes feel like you're in a dull wasteland.

I will say that Morrowind is an absolutely great game. It's an amazing exploring experience and a great game with a great story on top of everything else. If you liked Oblivion, if you like Fallout if you like just kind of wandering on your own and making your own experience, you will love Morrowind. However there are a few complaints I had with this game.

The map and travel system are kind of lacking. The map is adequate but sometimes I would have liked a bit more detail. There were times when I wandered around for a half hour trying to find something that was actually marked on my map, it could get rather frustrating. I wish there could have been a way to mark your map, not necessarily a waypoint system but just a way to put a mark on your map so you could reference it. The travel system could get rather confusing as well. On many occasions I had to go and look on the internet what town I had to travel from to get to other towns and it became a maze of towns to get to one place. It could get confusing. Part of it made you feel like you were exploring even more, though with the game being as big as it is and with as much travel as there was it eventually became somewhat frustrating.

Okay, here's the weirdest complaint I've ever had about a game. It's too damn big. I absolutely love games that allow me explore. Fallout 3, New Vegas, Oblivion, I've spent around 400 hours just playing those three games. With Morrowind I feel like I could have easily spent that many hours just exploring it. I'm not sure how many hours I spent playing Morrowind, it doesn't keep track, I do know I started it February 10th and finished it around April 4th or so. That's almost two months of playing, I would estimate that I played somewhere between 50 and 100 hours, the main quest alone probably took close to thirty hours. Here's the thing, I would guess I saw less than 25% of the entire world. I didn't explore a ton of the caves, I didn't see a lot of the eastern part of the world, and yet I easily spent at least thirty to forty hours if not more exploring... and still only saw maybe 25%. If you explored every cave, every nook and cranny, every sidequest, every town, I would guess you could easily spend 250 to 300 hours on this game. Maybe more. It's huge. Amazingly huge. In Fallout 3 I did every quest I could, discovered almost every location, did everything I could in the game and finished all of the expansion packs. That took me 145 hours. I didn't even bother trying to complete the expansion packs for Morrowind, didn't explore probably 80% of the places I could have, I didn't do a ton of sidequests and yet it still took me almost two months to finish. Morrowind may actually be too big of a game. You may actually get tired of it before you could 100% it. The sheer size of the game is amazing.

Morrowind is a thoroughly enjoyable game. It's just fun. There's some annoyances here and there but overall it's a very solid game and still remains that way even seven years later. If you like exploring, if you like any of the other games I talked about, and if you have a lot of spare time, it is a definite must play.

Squid.